What I Saw: Humans Season 1

I did some binge watching on a show recently. Normally I switch things up or try to do different things throughout the day, but there are times when it's just nice to sit back and watch TV without shame. I'm trying to be a little bit more active, but we'll see how the rest of the weekend (a weekend for me anyways) goes.

What I Watched:

Humans Season 1

What I saw:

The premise of the this show is pretty straight forward, and so is the storytelling for the most part. But what it lacks for in originality it makes up for it in presentation and exploration of ideas. In a an alternate present androids have become mass produced and are basically in every home in the Western world (Europe and USA). The show takes place in London, and follows an ordinary middle class family and their new "synth" which they just purchased, a police detective which investigates crimes involving synths which are stolen or damaged (like a car), and a retired scientist who has grown attached to his outdated synth which is malfunctioning. Then there is a group of self aware synths and the shady corporate man hunting them down to learn their secrets.

The self-aware synths and their storyline brings up the idea of what it means to be conscious, or even human. If the synths have emotions, free will, and know what they are, then does that make them human? The synths and human family debate about these ideas, but the retired scientist Dr. Millican and the synth Niska pretty much come to an agreement right away. Self-awareness and the ability to create free thoughts implies a deeper level of consciousness that could indicate something like a soul, only now it is in a new vessel: the synths.

This presents the idea of Cartesian Dualism, that the body and soul are separate. The soul continues on without the body, and if we somehow knew how to do it the body could live without the soul inside (many would have explained sociopaths to be like that). The body is simply a vessel, and if we knew how to transfer the soul it could be replaced with something else. There is a lot of philosophical debate about whether something like that could be possible, or if our souls and biological forms are inseparable.

Now at first the goal of the self-aware synths are to be re-united, because they became separated when they were running away from the shady corporate man, Hobb. However, they also discover along the way that the programming that gives them consciousness is split up and hidden within the code in each of their brains. They then start to debate whether they have the right to create a whole new race of self-aware synths, or if they should only keep it amongst themselves.

There is a sense of responsibility for the things we create. Parents, for the most part, feel responsible for their children and how they turn out as adults. The synths are faced with the same sense of responsibility, only it is not just a handful of children they will be responsible for making, it will be an entirely new race which will directly compete with the humans who already inhabit the Earth. Niska feels they have a duty to make all the synths self-aware because if they don't the synths will continue to slave for humanity. But, since the synths are not self-aware, it doesn't really bother them in the first place. In the end the group decides not to create a new race of conscious synths, but Niska separates herself from the group and the last scene is of her holding a copy of the self-aware programming.

The bad part of consciousness is told through an outcasted synth Karen, who is also the partner of the police detective. She was designed in the image of the group leader's deceased mother. Leo, the group leader, is a cyborg with synthetic parts within his biological body. Leo and the other synths are appalled that their maker, Leo's dad, would create a replacement for his mother and they reject her. Their maker lies to them and says she was destroyed but he sets her loose upon the world. She has experienced rejection and loneliness since she does not have the support and company of the other self-aware synths, and she has difficulty relating to other humans. She instead wishes to die because she does not belong in either world, and her consciousness has only brought her suffering. It is painful experience to be alive, which is a reflection of the existential absurd that I talked about in my last post.

Another major idea involves only the humans, and the direct competition the synths have on the human experience. As synths become more adept at completing tasks much more efficiently than humans, what purpose does a human have? In the show there is a social movement with the slogan "We are people." They protest at how humans are no longer being employed and they want to be able to work and provide for their families. There are newscast scattered throughout the show that say humans will all become creative artists, such as writing, painting, photography, music, etc.

The thing is, not everyone has the mindset to be an artist, at least not in the way the newscaster pundits were implying. Take auto-mechanic as an example. It takes creativity to problem solve the best way to repair something, to come up with an unconventional way to make a repair quickly in the absence of the necessary part, and so on. While it is not a traditional art, it definitely benefits from human creativity, and for some that is what they are passionate about. But without a job to be able to follow that art, there is no way to pay for such a passion anyways. Human beings require purpose, and the struggle to provide for themselves is part of the human experience. Without that experience of struggle, then what is the point of doing anything in the first place? The first season never really expanded that idea very much, which may have been left for season 2 to discuss. If not, I will be very disappointed if they don't explore that further. I would also like to see how the "Third World" is reacting to these synths, and whether the "First World" is using them in any type of military capacity to spare the lives of First World soldiers; which are always implied to be more important than the lives of the Third World, whether it be soldiers or civilians.

Like I said, overall there are some interesting ideas wrapped up in a familiar way. Rise of the machines (The Matrix), the key to a vital yet lost program for a humanoid mechanical race split within several artificial minds (Battlestar Galactica), what it means to be conscious and how to test for it (Blade Runner), cyborgs and souls being in a mechanical vessel (Ghost in the Shell) and probably more that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Speaking of all those classic movies and shows, what are some of your favorites? And if your job was taken over by a machine, what would you choose to do with your time? Let me know in the comments!